The invention relates to a method for receiving broadcast signals by means of a broadcast receiver that has at least two receiver units for different transmission technologies. The different transmission technologies may be VHF/FM radio, AM radio, DRM radio (Digital Radio Mondiale), DAB radio (Digital Audio Broadcasting), DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) and/or other transmission technologies. In the method, the user selects a broadcast service of a first receiver unit of the at least two receiver units, with the selected broadcast service then being reproduced by the broadcast receiver. The invention also relates to a broadcast receiver that has two receiver units for different transmission technologies and is designed to implement the method.
It is common in broadcast receivers that user actions performed on the operating unit of a broadcast receiver impacts immediately on the actions being performed by the receiver unit. During a user action in which demands are made on a receiver unit, the reproduction of a broadcast signal is usually stopped until the user action is accomplished. For instance during a band-scan, which is meant to determine and list the reproducible broadcast signals, an interruption of several seconds can thus occur in the reproduction of the broadcast signal, which the user notices clearly. Such a video-output pause or audio mute from the broadcast receiver arises from the conventional approach to user operation in which the controls and display elements of the apparatus assign the user action directly or indirectly to a receiver unit. It is thus predetermined which receiver unit of a broadcast technology is addressed, whereas the receiver unit for other broadcast and/or transmission technologies is usually not involved or occupied in the execution of user actions.
Some known solutions intended to avoid this problem equip the broadcast receiver with two receiver units for the same broadcast technology, so that user actions can be performed in the background while the broadcast signal is received by the other receiver unit and reproduced by the broadcast receiver. This involves considerable costs especially for digital transmission technology because the receiver units for digital transmission technologies are still expensive.
Thus the object of the present invention is to interrupt as briefly as possible the reproduction of the selected broadcast service during user actions and/or automatically performed functions that access a receiver unit of the broadcast receiver. Automatically performed functions are functions that access a receiver unit of the broadcast receiver and are executed by the broadcast receiver, either self-initiated or as a result of a request from a control unit.